What’s This Generation Coming To?: The Sub Pop Singles Club

At first glance, the concept behind the Sub Pop Singles Club seemed crass. Make indie-rock singles in limited editions, and get fans to pay lump sums for batches of them, sometimes without even revealing what bands would be involved. The label even sarcastically acknowledged the commercialism of their venture, which began in 1988: "Hey loser. Wanna find some action? Tired of being left out?," read the subscription form included inside record sleeves. "Here at SUB POP we've started a special club for lonely record collectors like yourself...Every other month we'll send you 2 limited edition 45's. All you have to do is SEND US YOUR MONEY."

Sub Pop has always wielded that kind of blunt irony like a hammer, but the real irony of the Singles Club was that it was far from crass. Rather than make it a quick-cash repository for outtakes and throwaways by label mainstays, Sub Pop co-founders Bruce Pavitt and Johnathan Poneman used the series to continue the eclectic curatorial vision he started with his mid-1980s fanzines and cassette compilations known as Subterranean Pop.

From his earliest endeavors, Pavitt dug all kinds of underground rock from around the globe, and liked the idea of connecting geographically disparate bands and scenes to each other. In that sense, the roots of the Singles Club ran deeper than Sub Pop's more well-known singles and albums. If "Touch Me I'm Sick" and Screaming Life defined Sub Pop, Singles Club entries from Indiana country-punks Lazy Cowgirls, Australian noise-rockers Lubricated Goat, British rockabilly fiends Thee Headcoats, and Japanese popsters Shonen Knife more closely reflected the inspirations for starting the label in the first place.

Not that the Singles Club was some kind of snobby hideaway touting obscure bands-- most of the groups were relatively known and already established on other labels, if not on Sub Pop itself. But it's unlikely that there were many subscribers who were intimately familiar with all the groups involved, and if there were, for them the Singles Club could simply serve as a great indie-rock compilation doled out in small, beautifully packaged portions.

And even though that packaging was clearly collector-oriented-- most of the records were on colored vinyl, and most covers bore a uniform bar at the top with standardized fonts, a kind of Sub Pop seal of approval-- the Singles Club was actually non-exclusive. You didn't need a subscription to get most of the records, since they were pressed in such large runs that they were often readily available in stores around the U.S.

This somewhat egalitarian approach to what seemed like a collector-coddling concept created excitement based more on the music than the medium. Sure, it was cool to see what color the vinyl of the next entry would be, but cooler to see which band Sub Pop would entice next. At the time all Sub Pop singles were excitement-generators-- non-Club releases by Mudhoney, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., and Screaming Trees created their own buzz. But there was something special about the Club, perhaps just due to the mini-tradition it was forging. When bands as good and diverse as Rapeman, Mecca Normal, and Come joined in, it was hard to decide which was more impressive: That Sub Pop had deemed them worthy, or vice versa.

Just as cool as this versatility was the flexibility that Sub Pop brought to the Singles Club concept-- something easy to miss, as the packaging and regularity of the series made it seem more uniform than it actually was. Pretty much any idea flew. Alongside standard two-song singles sat a Christmas installment from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, a four-band Alice Cooper tribute, a four-song Unrest EP featuring covers of bands from the Factory label (called, naturally, A Factory Record), and even a nod to Sub Pop's poaching ways in the form of an EP by bands on Amphetamine Reptile, credited in the label discography to "Amphetamine Reptile."

Taken as a whole, the Singles Club is a mini-history of early-90s indie rock. Five years, 62 releases (counting doubles as two), beginning in November 1989 with Nirvana's "Love Buzz" and ending in December 1993 with Lou Barlow's "I Am Not Mocking You". Along the way we got stellar Seattle-sound from Tad, the Fluid, and Soundgarden; dirty punk from Poison Idea and Antiseen; variations on roots rock from Reverend Horton Heat, the Gories, and the Wolverton Bros.; east coast indie from Tsunami and Velocity Girl; and unclassifiable stuff from Combustible Edison, Ween, and the Dwarves. There were duds, but for the most part, bands brought stuff to the Singles Club that was as good as their previous work, if not better.

In that sense, the Singles Club wasn't a grab bag, despite the stylistic variety. Pavitt and Poneman had a strong sense of quality control, and his interest in diverse bands and scenes actually pointed out the similarities between them all. Check out the big chords on Urge Overkill's "What's This Generation Coming To?", the pounding beats of Rapeman's "Song Number One", even the stop-start grind of Fugazi's "Joe #1": None are that far away from the metal-inflicted post-punk that became known as grunge. Conversely, sticking these bands among Sub Pop regulars (many of whom participated in the Club) highlighted how the label wasn't the monolithic grunge empire the press made them out to be. After all, how much did Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and Nirvana really sound like each other? Certainly not much more than they sounded like Flaming Lips, Unsane, or Rocket From the Crypt.

All of the above is technically just half of the story. In 1998, five years after the Singles Club ended, a second edition emerged. Pavitt had left the label, but this new series stuck to his eclectic principles under the direction of Poneman. In fact, the diversity was maybe even greater, containing Bonnie "Prince" Billy, To Rococo Rot, and Pedro the Lion under one umbrella. But oddly, it was also a liability this time around. Perhaps it's early-90s nostalgia on my part, or perhaps there actually was a smaller pool of good music to pick from in the early 2000s. Perhaps the 7" itself just wasn't the same anymore. Or perhaps, most likely, it was just impossible to capture the magic of something so special a second time. Whatever the reason, the Singles Club Mk. II never gained the luster of the original, dissolving in 2002. Edition 3 launches next month, opening with Om and including a good range of bands, from Black Lips to Mika Miko to Blues Control. The jury's out as to whether the original club's heyday will be matched, but it should exciting to listen Sub Pop give it another shot.

Every subscriber probablyhas their own unqiue list of what was best from the club so far. Rather than attempt that, here's a random sampling of some of the more intriguing entries from across the Sub Pop Singles Club.

Flaming Lips: "Drug Machine" b/w "Strychnine / What's So Funny (About Peace, Love, and Understanding)", January 1989 The third installment in the Club, and the first to confirm that this series wouldn't be a Seattle-fest. The A-side is a slow-boiled version of the first track on their concurrent classic Telepathic Surgery. But it's the B-side-- a surreal meld of wiry Buttholes guitar, fried Stooges slam, and half a Nick Lowe cover-- that best reflects the daunting strength of this group circa 1989.

Babes in Toyland: "House" b/w "Arriba", May 1990 Babes in Toyland's screaming noise-rock seemed like a female parallel to the Touch and Go or Amphetamine Reptile rosters, but their albums haven't held up the way, say, the Jesus Lizard's or Halo of Flies' have. This single still sounds fresh, though, especially the B-side, a muscular screech that could've made this band a true classic, had they been able to sustain this kind of energy over an entire full-length.

Urge Overkill: "Now That's the Barclords" b/w "What's This Generation Coming To?", May 1991 The A-side is a super-catchy Nash Kato tune that could almost pass for Wire-style post-punk if you deducted U.O.'s classic-rock leanings (please don't), while the B-Side is another one of the band's great cultural anthems ("Don't take my bottle away!"). U.O. were no grunge band-- they wore velvet, turtlenecks, and medallions onstage-- but in spirit, they matched the nouveau-retro feel of prime Sub Pop. This would be my pick for the best Singles Club entry, were it not for...

Royal Trux: "Steal Yr Face" b/w "Gett Off," April 1993 Royal Trux were an impeccable singles band, and this might be their best: two stellar bits of stumbling, Rolling-Stones-on-way-more-drugs heavy-blues. "Gett Off" aptly demonstrates the way Neil Hagerty could make one lopsided riff a song of its own, as well as the way Jennifer Herrema's gutty growl could turn a snarl into a smile, and vice versa.

The Jesus and Mary Chain: "The Birthday" b/w "Hide Myself", April 1998 This gets points for originality, as the Jesus and Mary Chain were the last band I would've guessed would launch the rebirth of the Singles Club, even though they were on Sub Pop at the time. The songs themselves aren't so bad-- a standard beat-box lurch á la Automatic and a passable acoustic-based ballad. But their average-ness got the second series off to a rather dead start.

The Dead C.: "Stealth" b/w "The Factory," February 2000 Biggest surprise in the second edition, and the kind of inspired choice Pavitt would've been proud of. Fine lumbering noise from this New Zealand improv-rock trio, who've lately gotten some long-overdue above-ground exposure-- hard to say if this helped kick-start that trend, but here's hoping, as it's fully worthy of the attention.

The White Stripes: "Party Of Special Things To Do" b/w "China Pig / Ashtray Heart," December 2000 The A-side on this single of Captain Beefheart covers is a solid slab of crunching garage, but it's the two songs on the flip that really stick: "China Pig", a shivery, lo-fi acoustic blues, and the heavy stomp of "Ashtray Heart", featuring one of Jack White's best warbling rants ("Someone's had too much to think!").

J. Mascis: "Leaving On A Jet Plane" b/w "Too Hard," September 2001 Hard to know what to say about this, except that it's also hard to get the A-side out of your head. It's not a great cover-- and Mascis is usually great at covers-- but something about the sloppily earnest take on this soft-rock staple, complete with off-key female vocals, makes it oddly compelling.